“I think somebody’s trying to gaslight me.”

When we last saw Tom Mason on Falling Skies episode 307, “The Pickett Line,” he was surrounded by Skitters. This week we learned what became of Tom when it was revealed Karen had taken him captive in order to probe his mind about the impending attack against the Espheni. “Strange Brew” unfolded like a science fiction version of It’s a Wonderful Life,as Tom appeared to be back at home with his wife and children, and the alien invasion never happened. Noah Wyle often has good material to work with on the show, but in episode 308, he had to navigate between a seemingly perfect existence with his family, to the reality of being tortured at the hands of his adversary. Wyle’s commanding performance this week has earned him the Most Valuable Actor Award. (More…)

For most of the shows we cover, we find each episode has an actor that stands out more than the others – one who absolutely owned the episode. This vote isn’t about the other actors not delivering or being any less valuable, but as we mentioned, it’s about who stands out in the episode. It could be a combination of great writing, delivered lines, emotional execution; basically, if it gives us goosebumps or moves us in any way it’s getting a vote. We’ve found that, depending on the show, it’s a lot tougher to see who got our vote. This means that for every episode we, at TVAfterDark, will decide who gets our MVA vote. An actor can be voted several times within a season, but only ONE can be chosen in each episode. You can see our MVA’s here.